DA confirms probe into Matthews, Hoeffel meetings (video)

By KEITH PHUCASTimes Herald Staff

Thursday, December 2, 2010

COURTHOUSE - Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman is investigating allegations that two of the county commissioners’ meetings at an East Norriton restaurant may have violated the state’s Sunshine Act.

Commissioner Chairman James R. Matthews and Joseph Hoeffel have admitted meeting at area restaurants for the past two years with county Solicitor Barry Miller and Deputy Chief Operating Officer Jim Maza. The Times Herald, whose reporter overheard two morning meetings at Jem Restaurant, suspected the two commissioners violated the state Sunshine Act by allegedly discussing county business there.

Having two of the three commissioners present at the restaurant constitutes a quorum, and when public officials discuss government business outside the public eye, the Sunshine law applies, according to Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s media law council Melissa Melewsky.

Once elected in 2007, Hoeffel and Matthews formed a political alliance against Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr., who has never attended - and is reportedly unwelcome at - the Tuesday morning restaurant gatherings.

When questioned by The Times Herald’s Montgomery County Courthouse reporter at Wednesday’s commissioners meeting about rendezvouses at the Swede Road eatery, Matthews and Hoeffel claimed no county matters were discussed, and insisted the breakfasts were purely social get-togethers.

On Thursday, a day after The Times Herald published articles alleging the breakfast discussions were unlawful, Hoeffel met with reporters in his office to dispel any notion that he violated the Sunshine law.

Hoeffel claimed he didn’t discuss, deliberate or decide any county government business at morning meetings he attended at Jem Restaurant with Matthews in recent weeks.

In October and November, the newspaper reporter sat near Matthews, Hoeffel and the other staffers and took notes while they discussed a variety of government business.

Hoeffel, a former congressman, said he, Matthews, Miller and Maza, who were unacquainted when the commissioners took office in 2008, began meeting together to “develop a level of trust” among themselves. Previously, the officials met at Ray’s Diner in East Norriton.

“I Just think the (Times Herald) story misses the facts and frankly is a bit of gotcha journalism, that I think is unfortunate,” he said. “It’s my belief The Times Herald reporter who eavesdropped on the (Jem) meetings didn’t clearly hear what she claimed, didn’t understand what she was hearing, and thinks that any discussion among the four of us is a violation of the Sunshine Act. That’s not true.”

On Thursday, Hoeffel repeatedly emphasized that neither he nor Matthews deliberated or decided how they would vote on any issues before the board, but when asked if it was permissible to discuss government business at the restaurant with Matthews, he claimed Miller and Maza did most of the talking at the breakfast meetings.

“I think Miller and Maza did the discussing,” Hoeffel said. “I might have reacted to something they said, and what I’m saying to you is that Matthews and I don’t deliberate at those breakfasts.”

During the Jem gatherings, Hoeffel said when the other staffers have talked about official business, “I react, I comment, I might say something to Maza or Miller, but we don’t deliberate on that issue.”

The recent news reports in The Times Herald and other media outlets detailing allegedly secret meetings between two of the three commissioners, in which they were reportedly discussing county business in advance of their public meetings to the exclusion of the other member of the board, present sufficient detail to warrant a criminal investigation, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.

In 2008, Ferman created the Public Corruption Unit, which has the full power of the DA’s Office to investigate corruption utilizing an Investigating Grand Jury, immunity, informants and wiretaps.

“While it is generally not our practice to announce investigations, the level of public awareness about these allegations involving the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners has reached the point that we felt it necessary to confirm the existence of the investigation,” she wrote in an e-mail message to The Times Herald Thursday evening. “We will follow the evidence wherever it leads. The public must have confidence that law enforcement will never turn a blind eye to crime or corruption of its government, no matter who is involved and no matter the magnitude of the alleged violation. No one is above the law.”